


Curse of the derelict vampire

by Slant



Category: Twilight Series - All Media Types, Twilight Series - Stephenie Meyer
Genre: Gen, Gong farmer, Sanitation, Sewerage, disgusting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-19
Updated: 2014-02-19
Packaged: 2018-01-13 02:40:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1209700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Slant/pseuds/Slant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>We arn't told much about when Carlisle lost his humanity. I filled in the gaps using google-knowledge about London's pre-fire sewerage system. It's pretty disgusting. </p><p>Inspired by a comment on Anamardoll's Twilight deconstrution</p>
            </blockquote>





	Curse of the derelict vampire

It was summer and in the long hot days, London stank. Carlisle stepped over the open sewer that ran down the middle of the street. He'd spent day gossiping with his neighbors, which was technically a sin, but God wouldn't mind if it led to rooting out papist plots.

His father would mind if he was late for prayers, which was why he was hurrying home. In the rather idiosyncratic version of Protestantism prescribed by his father, evening prayers, preaching and many other things normally done in the church were taken into the pastor's house, in order to symbolise that God should ever be in the home of true worshipers; serving dinner around the pulpit was a bit of a chore. This practise did help to justify their disgustingly lavish home. In this case, "disgustingly lavish" meant two rooms and a separate jakes; their neighbors lived in smaller, less comfortable but more godly one-room dwellings of daubed wattle and thatch, and emptied their chamberpots into the ditch in the middle of the street.

After prayers, Carlisle discussed his day's discoveries with his father. The main point of interest was that Bill Gildon was suspected of being a non-conformist. It wasn't big news, but it was as well to know who could be relied upon to stand against any papist plots that they uncovered. There was also a peculiar story going around, from too many sources to be completely made up that there was a furtive figure living in the sewer.  
People died in the sewer sometimes; drunks fell in and drowned, and then got dragged out by the parish scavenger and buried in the potters field, unless someone claimed the body and paid for a decent burial in consecrated ground.  
But living there? Even by the standards of London in the midst of the great stink, the sewers were vile, a shallow pit filled with rotting household waste and human ordure reeking as it oozed its way to the Fleet ditch.

You would have to be plenty desperate, noseless and and uncaring of rat-bite to live there. Catholics were generally rich and well-connected, but there were other heresies to confront.

 

...

 

As evening fell, Carlisle went out to search for the shadowy figure. Walking down an alleyway, his foot twisted on something and he glanced down. A splash of red, shockingly vivid on the dull packed earth of the street. He was standing in a dead pigeon. The small corpse lay sideways under his left foot, pushing up into the big toe mound and across the inner arch. He stepped hurriedly away, cringing away from the slick sensation of shoe-sole lubricated with smeared meat. The smell followed him to the next street before dissipating.

Still intensely aware of his own revulsion, Carlisle spotted something pulling itself out of the ditch.  
"Well," thought Carlisle, "The rumours are true. That is definitely a person who lives in a sewer."  
The figure was disgusting. Carlisle wasn't going to guess gender. He wasn't going to guess height, build, skin colour. (He set limb number to "probably legs"). He estimated 'amount of rotting organic matter and human effluent clinging to it' at about 100 pounds and called it a day. And then...  
The sun dipped below the clouds, sunlight slanting across the city as it set, and the direct rays fell on the figure and the bare skin of its fingertips and the whites of its eyes shone like diamonds. Carlisle cried out in surprise; it was the last thing he knew.

 

...

 

He came round and it was dark and the street was deserted. His blood shone spattered on the ground around him. He felt tired but incredible; he was hurting now but when he recovered he'd be able to pick up a horse. Something - misfiring neuron or vampiric blood-curse made the filth in the open gutter look incredibly attractive, and with the wobbly confidence of those confused by sickness or injury, he buried himself in discarded root vegetables.

They were going to be amazed when they saw what he'd grown into.

**Author's Note:**

> Human!Carlisle discovering shit-covered!Nosferatu hanging around in the open sewer in the middle of the street in pre-fire London is an image that should be immortalised in bronze.
> 
> EDIT: "some instinct" ->"Something - misfiring neuron or vampiric blood-curse" 
> 
> Because "some instinct" is the worst motivation ever.


End file.
